Judge Curry Shuts Down the Comey and Tish James Cases — And Exposes a Stunning Legal Meltdown Inside the Trump Administration

When Judge Cameron McGowan Curry walked into the courtroom, no one expected fireworks. She is, after all, a 77-year-old federal judge known for her calm demeanor and careful reasoning. Yet on this day, she delivered one of the bluntest legal smackdowns of the year—one that obliterated two high-profile indictments and exposed deep structural failures inside the Trump Justice Department.

Her message to Trump-appointed lawyer Lindseay Halligan was brutally simple:
You were never legally the U.S. Attorney. So everything you touched is invalid.

And with that, the criminal cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James collapsed in a single ruling.

A Political Assignment Gone Wrong

The saga began when Trump removed Eric Seibert, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA), frustrated that Seibert refused to indict Trump’s political enemies. Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi wanted charges against Comey and Tish James before the statutes of limitations expired—and they wanted them fast.

Enter Lindseay Halligan, a Florida insurance lawyer with zero prosecutorial experience but a loyal Trump ally. Bondi elevated her through a series of White House positions before abruptly installing her as EDVA’s acting U.S. Attorney.

The problem?
She was never legally appointed.

Federal law requires that U.S. Attorneys be confirmed by the Senate, or temporarily appointed through strict procedures with exact time limits. Trump had already used his one legal interim appointment months earlier on Seibert. When Bondi attempted to replace him with Halligan, she bypassed the statute entirely.

Halligan walked into the grand jury anyway.

The Rushed Indictments

On September 25—just five days before the limitations deadline—Halligan presented evidence against Comey. On October 9, she did the same with Tish James. She signed all three indictments herself, with no career prosecutor backing her.

Almost immediately, lawyers noticed glaring legal defects.
For example:

She somehow secured three indictments from one grand jury presentation, a process that isn’t normally possible.

Court observers watching the Comey hearings described the charges as “legally incoherent.”

Magistrate judges made thinly veiled comments suggesting a first-year law student would have avoided Halligan’s mistakes.

But the biggest flaw dwarfed all the others:
Halligan had no authority to prosecute anyone. Not even to stand in the grand jury room.

Defense attorneys filed motions to dismiss almost instantly.

The “Three Hat Dance”—And Why It Failed

This entire controversy exists because Bondi had been using a controversial workaround—nicknamed the three hat dance—to install Trump loyalists as acting U.S. Attorneys without Senate confirmation.

The scheme went like this:

Hat 1: Use the Attorney General’s 120-day temporary appointment power.

Hat 2: Appoint the same person as First Assistant U.S. Attorney so they automatically “step up” when the position becomes vacant.

Hat 3: Appoint them as a “Special Attorney” under a separate statute so their prosecutions can survive challenges even if the appointment process is illegal.

This tactic had already been challenged in multiple states. Courts in New Jersey, California, and Nevada ruled against it—but sometimes allowed prosecutions to stand because the “other hats” provided backup legal authority.

But with Halligan?

Bondi forgot the hats.

She gave Halligan only one—the 120-day temporary appointment—and even that one was illegal because Trump had already used his single allowed interim appointment months earlier.

Bondi didn’t attempt the second or third hats until six weeks after the indictments—at which point she bizarrely tried to “backdate” Halligan’s authority in a Halloween order that Judge Curry openly mocked.

Judge Curry’s Ruling: A Total Implosion

On November 25, Judge Curry dismissed both the Comey and Tish James cases.
Her reasoning was surgical:

Trump had already used his one temporary appointment for EDVA on Eric Seibert.

Therefore, the statute offered no legal mechanism for Halligan to be appointed.

Bondi’s attempt to rewrite the past was “unsupported by law.”

Ratifying indictments after the fact would allow any random citizen to walk into the grand jury room—an obviously absurd outcome.

Her conclusion was devastating:

“All actions flowing from Ms. Halligan’s defective appointment… must be set aside.”

With that sentence, two of the most politically charged prosecutions of the year evaporated.

A Partial Win for the Defense — But Not Complete

Both Comey and James asked Judge Curry to dismiss their cases with prejudice, which would have permanently barred the government from re-filing the charges.

Judge Curry refused.

Instead, she dismissed the cases without prejudice, meaning the DOJ can try again by seeking new indictments.

In a normal Justice Department, prosecutors would simply go back to the grand jury next week, this time with a legally appointed attorney presenting the case. They would treat the earlier fiasco as a bad draft and try to clean it up.

But this is not a normal Justice Department.

Why DOJ Can’t Simply Fix It

Bondi is fighting similar appointment challenges in multiple courts, and conceding error in the Halligan case would collapse her arguments everywhere else. If she admits the appointment was illegal in EDVA, it undermines every “three hat” appointment nationwide.

She’s boxed in by her own strategy.

So instead of securing clean new indictments, the DOJ will likely:

Appeal Judge Curry’s ruling to the Fourth Circuit

And eventually take the issue to the Supreme Court

Meanwhile, the Comey and James cases remain dead—unless and until higher courts resurrect them.

The Statute of Limitations Problem

Even if prosecutors ultimately win the appeal, the statute of limitations is a looming threat.

Tish James can still be re-indicted because her charge carries a 10-year statute.

But for Comey, the original deadline expired September 30.

A special statute (18 U.S.C. § 3288) may allow a fresh indictment within six months after dismissal—but only if the first indictment was valid enough to count.

Comey will argue that Halligan’s indictment was void from day one, so it can’t extend the deadline. DOJ will argue the opposite. Whoever loses will almost certainly take the issue to the Supreme Court.